


I'm leaving this place but there is nothing I'm planning to take (just you)

by thecrackshiplollipop



Category: Glee
Genre: Character Death, F/F, Mild Gore, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:00:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecrackshiplollipop/pseuds/thecrackshiplollipop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zombies? They only exist in fiction, right? Except what if they didn't? And what if Rachel finds herself stuck in Cassandra July's condo when the world ends? Can two such unlikely allies rely on one another for survival when they don't trust enough to share dinner plans?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to timorous_scribe, my ever-patient beta.

The TV is on when Rachel wakes up, but the volume is low, so she can’t make out what’s on. The light is bright and shifting, distracting enough to keep Rachel from sinking back to sleep. Cassie’s back is silhouetted against the light, her posture uncharacteristically slouched. The only indication she hasn’t turned to stone is the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathes.

Rachel sits up, the satin fabric of Cassie’s sheet slips off of her naked torso and exposes her skin to the warmth of the bedroom. The material is soft and Rachel vaguely remembers Cassie threatening her about messing them up. She feels weird about being naked in them now, but Cassie hasn’t bothered to get dressed, either.

“What time is it?” Rachel slides down the bed, knees barely whispering over the material.

“Does it really matter?” Her voice is thick and for a minute Rachel wonders if Cassie even slept, but then it’s clear she’s been crying and Rachel is so shocked she doesn’t even know what to say. Instead she looks from Cassie’s face to the TV and suddenly she understands.

“Wh-”

“Sometime around midnight.”

“Oh _god_.”

* * *

News of the infection came out of the Everglades, a virus that attacked the central nervous system and methodically shut down the victim’s body over a five day period.

The first two victims show up in a vet hospital north-west of Collier-Seminole State Park. Reports indicate they’d been in a swamp boat accident, one suffers an alligator bite to the leg while the other has deep scratches all down his back from an unknown animal. Their injuries are minimal and they’re kept overnight to watch for infection.

By morning rounds both men present with headaches and light sensitivity, they spike low-grade fevers within moments of the headache’s onset. The doctors try in vain to medicate the men, but by the afternoon it’s clear they are too sick to be sent home.

The doctors order a battery of tests, standard ones first and then weirder and more obscure as the days stretch on. One doctor is positive it’s bacterial, so they’re put on heavy duty antibiotics and kept in clean rooms. Another doctor thinks they’ve contracted a parasite, but when all parasitic panels come back negative, the doctor is stumped and orders a colonoscopy. But by then - day three - the men are considered too weak. When they begin coughing up lung tissue, the doctors are all convinced it’s a mutated bubonic plague and put them on a beefed up dosage of doxycycline and alert the CDC.

On day three the doctors notice the symptoms spreading through the hospital - a woman in the geriatric unit develops a fever and a headache, a teenager in post-op suddenly spikes a low grade fever when she should be getting prepped for discharge.

Agents from the CDC fly in on the fifth day, arriving at the hospital just in time to witness the man bitten by the alligator seizing and going into cardiac arrest.

Ten days later, the virus has popped up in ten other hospitals across Florida, as well as at a hospital in Mississippi and at a clinic on the Texas Gulf Coast.

Panic on the North American continent goes as viral as the disease. The United States Federal government loses control of the loose cannon states and portions of the south break away to create militarized zones. In one crazed frenzy, Mexican citizens pour over the border, overwhelming the minutemen guards stretched along the chain link fence from California to Texas. Canada closes its borders for the first time, turning away panicked Americans seeking the perceived safety of the far north. But Canada isn’t safe, nowhere is. Terrifying news of the exact same disease comes out of the jungle of South America and Nicaragua, from the Nile Valley in Egypt, from a monastery in Tibet. It’s reported that the entire island of Java has fallen victim and contact with Australia and New Zealand is lost.

But it’s in Georgia where the true horror is realised:

The agents in Florida were ordered to bring the bodies to CDC headquarters for autopsy and further testing. It took days to arrange with the government for flight clearance, but the disease raged around them and the facilities in Floriad were insufficient to properly diagnose the illness. The body count was rising and by the time CDC agents managed to get helicopter clearance out of Florida, almost the entire hospital’s population was dead.

In Atlanta, the disease had barely taken hold. The city government had acted fast and clamped down tight on the first hospital it showed up in. By the time agents returned, the virus was contained to one small hospital on the outskirts of town. At the same time of their arrival, the President was flying in for an emergency meeting.

Inside the CDC, agents were preparing the bodies for autopsy when _something_ happened.

The details have never been clear, but what _is_ known is that the deceased came back to life and started eating the unprepared and unarmed lab technicians at the CDC’s headquarters. Though they were eventually put down, their victims regenerated too quickly for the untrained, unprepared CDC staff and overwhelmed the building, spilling out into a city unprepared for something so powerful and mindless.

The government calls them reanimated corpses, RACs for short. "The Walking Dead" fans call them walkers. Everyone else calls them zombies.

* * *

Day One:

“I need to go home,” Rachel is off the bed in a flash, stumbling through the unfamiliar darkness of Cassie’s bedroom. “Where are my clothes?”

“Home?” Cassie is slow to react, her eyes still focused on the TV when she speaks.

“Yeah. Clothes?”

Cassie’s attention finally shifts to Rachel - naked, wide-eyed, and groping around the floor for her clothes. “What like, to Ohio?” Rachel freezes and stands up slowly from where she was looking under Cassie’s dresser.

“No... to Brooklyn. I need to get to my roommates.”

“Your clothes are in the washer. And it’s past two in the morning. You’re not going anywhere.”

“But I-”

“Do you really want to go home naked?”

Rachel really can’t argue with that.

* * *

“They won’t let me leave.” Rachel drops her purse on Cassie’s couch, ignoring the way she grimaces, and sits down in one of her uncomfortable-looking armchairs.

“Who? The police officer who _escorted_ you up here?”

“No, the soldiers down there on the street.”

Cassie stalks across the living room to the full length windows that overlook the street below. The street is crawling with every official-looking person Manhattan has to offer. People are being directed back into their buildings, some at gunpoint, and Cassie can tell from their faces that whatever it is, it’s something serious. She grits her teeth against unnecessarily worrying and turns back to Rachel who looks _really_ awkward in her club clothes.

“Do you need something to change into?”

Rachel just nods gratefully and slips her feet out of a pair of great Jimmy Choo knockoffs.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

* * *

Day Three:

“We’ve worked our way through most of your edible food, and it doesn’t look like you have anything else for us to eat.”

“I have protein bars.” Cassie ruffles her hair so her curls loosen and tousle perfectly. Rachel frowns at Cassie over her shoulder and turns back to the empty pantry.

“You have a box of protein bars and we’ve eaten four of them.” Rachel lets the pantry door slam closed and turns around quickly to look at Cassie, who is standing in front of her windows, the same place she’s been since they woke up to the sound of yelling on the streets. She looks relaxed and at home in a pair of plain black yoga pants and a sports bra, not like the world is going to shit outside and their food supply is dangerously low.

“So?”

“They come in packages of six.” Rachel huffs.

“Oh.” Cassie finally turns away from the window and looks unfazed.

“Why don’t we ask your neighbours?”  Cassie glares at Rachel then and Rachel can’t help grinning, just a little. It’s been this constant fight between them, the fact that Cassie trips over herself to keep her neighbours from ever seeing Rachel enter or leave her flat.

“Like they’re any better off than we are, no one has children in this building. Let me go talk to that ugly little soldier standing guard on my stoop.”

Rachel frowns. “It’s not a stoop if you pay upwards of three-thousand a month for the place.” She starts trying to work up an argument for why they need to start polling the neighbours’ food pantries. Cassie just rolls her eyes and walks out of the apartment before Rachel can even think of anything proper.

* * *

“I was yelled at and then escorted back inside.” The door slams behind her and they hear two sets of feet marching down the hallway.

Cassie looks unhappy but accepts the protein bar that Rachel shoves in her face. “I found a can of chili in the bottom of your pantry, and you had some cheese that looks edible in your fridge.”

“Anything else?”

“Do cocktail olives and several bottles of vodka count?”

“Always,” Cassie rips open the wrapper to her protein bar and takes a bite. “Do you know how to make an extra dry martini?”

* * *

Day Five:

“We can’t just keep getting drunk and having sex on your couch, Cassie.” Rachel yanks the blanket from the back of Cassie’s sofa and spreads it across her naked thighs. Cassie is stretching, naked and shameless, in front of the long windows of her loft. All of SoHo is getting a treat, if they’re paying attention.

Which, they’re probably not because of that whole quarantine thing.

“No, but it’s been fun while the vodka lasted.” Cassie bends over and retrieves her top - a loose, flimsy black stretch of fabric that barely brushes her abs. It’s one of Cassie’s weapons against Rachel, only Rachel’s pretty sure she wasn’t intending to employ the tactic when she put it on that morning. They’re just running low on clean comfortable clothes.

“I’m going out for food tonight.”

“You can’t do that,” Rachel reaches for the Kate Spade coffee-table book she’s been leafing through for the past two days. She’s halfway through and still knows nothing about Kate Spade other than _pretty pictures of pretty things_ and that she’s sure she’s seen some of the stuff on the pages in Cassie’s closet.

“I can try. And since we’ve already agreed we won’t be bartering with my neighbours again, we’re going to have to improvise. The corner store is probably _full_ of untouched food. I would really like to eat some of that food.”

Rachel believes her - Cassie woke up looking hungry. It’s a look that either means Rachel’s going to have bite marks on her shoulders or they’re going to go to a fancy restaurant. And since Rachel’s already sporting marks all over her shoulders and back, she gathered something else was on the menu.

“Why don’t I just try the soldiers again? They’ve been down there for five days, they have to have their own food, right?”

“Good point.” Cassie licks her lips and steps into a pair of boyshorts. “Hurry, before I do something drastic.”

Rachel doesn’t believe her - what could Cassie possibly do when they get guns waved at them every time they try to go outside? - but she still hurries into borrowed yoga pants and a tank top while Cassie pretends to focus on pulling her hair into a loose ponytail. Rachel’s not dumb, she feels Cassie’s eyes on her even as she hurries out of the front door.

* * *

“They had rations baskets all along.” Rachel pushes through the door with a large box in her arms. It’s big and plastic, coloured dark army green. She drops it onto the kitchen island with a grunt and a grimace before immediately heading to the kitchen sink, switching on the tap before she remembers they cut the water that morning. “Crap.”

“Rations?” Cassie comes out of her bedroom and flips open the container to peek inside. It’s not really standard rations: two litre bottles of water, a collection of MREs, a package of spearmint chewing gum, two chocolate bars, and a few miscellaneous canned goods. “They had these all along?”

“Mm,” Rachel reaches in and produces one of the cans, furrowing her brows at the plain label. Cassie just ah’s softly and holds one of the chocolate bars delicately.

“What’s succotash?” Rachel purses her lips and turns the can around for Cassie to look at.

“Mixed vegetables,” Cassie looks into the box and snatches a MRE from Rachel’s hands. “Oh look, they included vegetarian ones.”

“Why would they give us _canned_ vegetables?”

“Probably because they were taking whatever they could from a food bank.” Cassie shrugs and drops the vegetable lasagne MRE back into the box. “It’s food, at least. And they’ll bring us more, if this goes on for much longer.”

* * *

Day Eight:

The news stops broadcasting in the morning, shortly after that the power cuts out and the building’s auxiliary generator kicks on, giving enough power to the lights in the stairwell and the elevator. Without electricity, the street below goes dead silent except for occasional shouting followed quickly by bursts of gunfire. When Rachel ventures down to see what’s going on at the street level, she gets yelled at by a heavily muscled man in fatigues. His gun and the giant knife at his hip terrify Rachel more than his yelling, so she hurries back upstairs before he has a chance to step away from his post.

* * *

Day 10:

Rachel wakes up with dry mouth and has to fumble through the pre-dawn darkness of Cassie’s bedroom, groping for the doorway into the bathroom. The faucet is cool against her palms, but when she twists the tap nothing happens. The pipes groan and chug, but nothing comes out.

She forgot, of course, the water’s been out since last afternoon and they’re trying to conserve the four litres of water they got from some of the unclaimed rations baskets sitting in the lobby. But she’s thirsty, and licking her lips is only making it worse.

So she feels her way out of the bathroom and then out of the bedroom into Cassie’s sparsely furnished living room. The large windows that Cassie loves so much let in a ton of light, flooding the space with the orange glow that still hangs over the city, despite the power having gone out days ago. She wonders if the power is out in Brooklyn and if the sky over her apartment in Bushwick is still hazy and orange.

She cracks the fridge - which now serves as extra pantry space - and is reaching for one of the plastic bottles when she hears it, this dull hum cutting through the silence that’s fallen over SoHo since the power went out.

Rachel closes the fridge, forgetting her thirst, and practically skips across the living room. All she can think is that there are helicopters or tanks or _something_ coming to rescue them from Manhattan. She’s halfway to the windows when she hears a thud that makes the entire flat shake. The decorative plates over Cassie’s fireplace roll out of their stands and crash to the floor, one by one, drawing Rachel’s attention from the sunrise outside.

She looks back in time to see a ball of fire drop down from the sky and crash into the building opposite Cassie’s.

* * *

Everything is quiet except for the ringing sound that’s making it hard for Rachel to think. She can hardly breathe thanks to the pounds of rubble piled on top of her, but every gasp is accompanied by the searing pain of acrid smoke and the taste of sulphur.

She feels the rubble shifting off of her, slowly but enough so she can breathe a little more freely with each passing second. She’s screaming, she thinks, or crying. Her cheeks feel wet.

“Are you okay?” She can make out Cassie’s voice, distant and muffled through the tinny ringing in her head. Cassie’s face blurs into view and her hands, gritty with dirt, are brushing more debris away from Rachel’s face.

“Rachel!” Sound rushes in behind Cassie’s voice and it’s so disorienting Rachel has to squeeze her eyes closed to regain equilibrium.

“Don’t shout,” Rachel sounds more cross than she intended, but her throat is raw and her head is throbbing and she can’t tell if every bone in her body is broken or if that’s just how you feel when a wall collapses on you.

“Are you okay?” Cassie looks relieved when she sits back onto the balls of her feet, working the bricks off of Rachel’s hips and legs. Rachel sits up slowly, the world spinning for a second before it rights itself. Cassie’s face is smeared with soot, her clothes a mess. Her favourite yoga pants are ripped up on the knees and that’s when Rachel notices how scratched and bloody they are.

“I think so,” Rachel manages after a moment, coughing to relieve some tension in her chest and wiping at the tears trailing down her cheeks. Her palms come back smeared with red and for a moment the panic that surges through her body makes her vision swim black and she swoons.

“Hey! Hey! It’s okay. It’s just a little cut on your forehead.” Cassie’s hands are back on Rachel’s face, thumbs brushing over an abrasion above her left eyebrow. Rachel winces, but relaxes when it’s the only immediate pain she feels. “We need to get out of here.”

“Brooklyn?”

“No. Away from New York.”

"But Santana and-”

“They’re probably dead, Rachel.” Cassie stands up, brushing aside rubble before bending over to help Rachel up. “We need to get out.” Rachel’s mind races. She wants to call Santana, she’d know what to do, but she can’t. Cell service has been down since their second day on lockdown and she’s suddenly aware of the fact that she may not speak to Santana again. Santana, or Kurt, or Finn. Shelby. Her dads.

Cassie is still there, standing in her half-blown out living room wreathed in smoke and covered in cuts. Rachel knows that to survive, she can’t cling to what-ifs and maybes. She needs facts.

“No,” Rachel coughs, wincing at the pain. “I’m going to Brooklyn. And you’re coming with me.”

She needs facts. _And_ she needs clothes.

* * *

Manhattan looks like something out of _Reign of Fire_ , which Rachel will never forgive Santana for forcing her to watch because now she can’t stop imagining if dragons are around the corner. They keep to the wider streets, where the destruction is easy to get around and the fire has already mostly burned down.

Rachel and Cassie cling to each other as they shuffle through the broken city, down Broadway where the theatres have been turned to boulders, around City Hall Park which is a blazing inferno, and to the Brooklyn Bridge which is, thankfully, still standing. It’s covered in cars parked at odd angles and jammed tight bumper to bumper.

It’s a long walk across the bridge, Rachel’s hips and legs are sore from the bricks, her eyes sting from the black smoke hovering in the air. Cassie is favouring a foot, but seems to shake the pain loose when they maneuver around a car that stinks of death.

Rachel half-expected the surface of the East River to be burning. Sometimes it looks greasy and slick like an oil spill, but in the light of Manhattan burning, it is still and reflects the inferno like a piece of glass.

* * *

The world is caving in around them and all Rachel can think about is the fact that her apartment is empty. As in, planned evacuation empty. Most of the furniture is still there, like Santana’s funky old arm chair and Kurt’s beloved decorative knick knack collection, but there isn’t a sign of anything important sitting out. The sheets that separate their rooms are all piled up on the floor and Rachel can see straight into Santana’s ‘room’ where she’d been in the process of hanging posters before the world ended.

It also stinks to high heaven, but Rachel dismisses it because the whole building, the whole _street,_ stinks of death. It’s not an easy thing to dismiss, but it reminds Rachel of the time a racoon got caught in the fireplace one summer and the smell was so bad they had to go on vacation for a week to fumigate the house.

The electricity’s out, which they discover when Rachel cracks open the fridge and gets hit with another sickening wave of rot. She gags violently and has to stand in a corner while Cassie plucks a half-empty egg carton a few mummified apples from the crisper drawer. Rachel dry heaves and Cassie tosses the food back into the fridge before closing the door firmly.

Cassie just makes a face and looks down at her hands. “Do you think the water’s running?” She nods back towards the bathroom, a hopeful note to her voice.

“Not if the power’s off,” Rachel says distractedly, moving around the apartment to her bedroom. She hears Cassie try the tap in the kitchen - nothing, of course - and then open the bathroom door. Rachel is too busy rifling through her drawers to hear the noise Cassie makes right before slamming the bathroom door. “What was that?” Rachel looks up from her underwear drawer, in between the serious decision of whether or not thongs are a necessary thing at the end of days.

“Nothing. Just. Frustrated that there’s not a drop of fresh running water in the five boroughs.” She starts throwing open the cabinets, hoping that there’s some illegally purchased booze _somewhere_.

“We’ve only gone through two,” Rachel rolls her eyes and decides, no, thongs have always been impractical and are now more useful as dish rags. “Plus, we’re about to leave New York forever, I’m sure along the way we’ll find a river for you to bathe in.”

“I’m _not_ bathing in the river like some bad version of The Walking Dead.”

“I don’t think they bathed in the river on that show. And it’s not like it’d be the Hudson. Just think of it as camping, only until civilisation is restored.” Rachel abandons searching her drawers in favour of looking for a bag under her bed. Her suitcases are gone - probably thanks to Kurt and Santana - but her gym bag is buried under a pair of ugly-yet-sensible penny loafers. She can hear Cassie going through more cabinets and drawers, the hollow thud of fake wood on fake wood echoing around the mostly empty apartment.

“Ah ha! Wine! And, it’s nothing like camping. It’s like living in the sticks and the well pump is out so your grandfather takes you and your brothers to the watering hole and makes you take a bath in your bathing suit. Been there, done that. I’m not bathing in the river.” Cassie’s voice is travelling around the apartment now, the old floorboards creaking as she walks. Rachel shimmies back out from under the bed in time to see Cassie wander over into Santana’s area.

“Whatever you say. I hope you like being dirty.”

“I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that.” There’s a playful lilt to Cassie’s tone, something that’s been missing since the quarantine, and her lips twitch into a small smirk. It’s enough to make Rachel blush from the tips of her ears to her chin and she looks away before Cassie can catch it. Instead, she focuses on stuffing as much of her clothing into the bag as it will hold.

Cassie doesn’t have to say anything else, the heat pours through Rachel’s veins and it’s been so long since she’s felt like doing something other than just survive. If only they weren’t still in so much danger.

Silence stretches between them and the apartment falls still except for the ruffling of fabric as Rachel keeps pushing clothes into the bag. The street is so quiet it’s almost unsettling, no one is yelling at the corner, the sound of traffic isn’t there to make them feel less alone, even the pigeons seem to have abandoned the infected city.

“We should go,” Rachel speaks so suddenly that Cassie actually flinches. She shifts the duffel’s strap onto her shoulder and tests the weight against her hip. She still feels flush in her cheeks but does her best to look _just_ at Cassie, instead of Santana’s posters or Kurt’s sad attempts at DIY art that hang on his wall. It’s all a little too real.

“Aren’t you wondering where they are?”

“The news said Brooklyn was under an evacuation order. They probably just went home. It’s not like I can call, anyway.”

“Then why did we walk all the way from the Brooklyn Bridge to Bushwick when you knew they wouldn’t be here?”

“I didn’t know for sure. And plus, I needed… I needed to say goodbye, okay?” Rachel sighs, looking sad for just a moment. It’s one of the few times Cassie’s seen Rachel let herself look upset about the situation and it crumbles her resolve just enough.

“Okay. But, I’m not going with you to Iowa.”

“Ohio. And yes, you are.” Rachel practically sashays out of the apartment because she’s pretty sure Cassie is all bark and no bite.

She’s right, of course. Cassie waits a few beats before following Rachel out of the apartment, remembering to snatch the bottle of cheap merlot from the kitchen counter as she leaves.

She catches up with Rachel on the stairs, wedging next to her so she can loop her free arm through Rachel’s. “I’m thinking we should go through Staten Island.”

“Isn’t that the only way out of Brooklyn now?”

“Not unless you want to brave Queens.”

Rachel makes a face and tucks herself close to Cassie as they get to the lobby. She tries to ignore the bodies in the corner, and swallows back tears when she recognises one of them as the homeless guy she always gives her extra change to.

“But even then we’d have to go across the bridge to the Bronx and then... it’s a mess.”

“So. Staten Island. I’ve never been there.”

“You’re not missing much,” Cassie forces a smile and heads across the crumbled, burned street, in the general direction of the Staten Island turnpike.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've made it out of Manhattan alive and it's a miracle. They have no idea what the rest of the country is going to be like, but at least they have each other.

Day 32:  
“Why is it so hot in October?” Cassie groans and tilts her head against the passenger seat window. Warm, humid air is rushing into the car, blowing both Rachel and Cassie’s hair into a mess of tangles. But the breeze feels good after an hour of lying low in the stifling heat of their unmoving car. They’re wary now, and better armed after encountering some seriously damaged men in western New Jersey.

“No idea.” Rachel dares a glance at Cassie and, well, it’s bad enough that Rachel is a terrible driver, but Cassie is extremely distracting when she’s just lounging in the passenger seat, feet on the dash, head tilted back. She can’t afford to think too much about things that aren’t staying on the road and swerving around abandoned cars or corpses.

“Are you just going to stare at the road the whole time you’re behind the wheel?” Rachel hears Cassie shift. She shrugs and keeps going, eyeing a a pile up of abandoned cars less than a mile down the road. “Ugh. You might as well pull over, then, at least when you’re the passenger you _talk_.” 

Rachel looks over, mouth open in protest, but Cassie isn’t paying attention to her. She yanks her feet off the dash and points at the road. It’s only then that Rachel remembers the cars, _oh shit_ , and jerks the steering wheel to the right. The car swerves and suddenly they’re heading right for the metal shoulder of the road. Rachel slams on the brakes so hard the car squeaks in protest. But they stop, the nose of the car less than a foot away from the metal barrier.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Schwimmer.” Rachel learned a while back that ‘Schwimmer’ is Cassie’s ‘fight’ response. Her flight response is leaving before Rachel wakes up. “What was that?” She’s leaning forward, hands splayed on the dashboard, but she’s looking at the side of Rachel’s face with this incredulous look that, if Rachel would just stop staring at the road she’d see a familiar expression from their dance class days.

“I’m sorry I’m. I’m really bad at this.”

“What, driving?”

“Yes. I mean, under pressure. I, uh, it was one of the big perks of living in New York?”

“Oh my god get out of the car, we’re definitely going to switch.”

“Um... Cassie.”

“No point in arguing I’ll just-”

“No Cassie, look.”

Maybe thirty yards ahead of them is a zombie, moving away from the forest on the left side of the highway. Its chin is glossy with fresh blood and there’s a deep wound on its neck. It’s also missing half of its left arm. It looks like it could’ve been a normal teenager, once-blond hair matted with dried blood, its McDonald’s uniform torn and muddy. She’s never actually _seen_ one, only heard them from a distance as they escaped the Dick’s in Rockaway, but the horror limping towards them is far more terrifying than she’d imagined. 

Rachel tries not to panic, but when she remembers the back window of their car won't roll up, a wave of terror sends her reeling. She barely even registers Cassie sliding out of the passenger seat. She watches the zombie, the sound of its feet dragging over the rubble on the road the only noise aside from the groan of the wind. She wants to scream, or hide, but then she catches Cassie slinking along the side of the road, behind abandoned cars, looking like a character in a spy movie. Rachel’s stomach knots in terror, she’s not afraid that the zombie will get her anymore, she’s terrified it will get _Cassie._

And that’s just not something that can happen.

She watches Cassie, holding her breath and the urge to scream until she feels like her head's going to explode. Cassie moves carefully, expert dancer’s feet stepping over a broken beer bottle, a Burger King bag that's wedged under a chunk of asphalt, and the beat up, naked body of a Ken doll. But then she freezes and her eyes dart to Rachel, trying to communicate something as the wind roars down the highway.

When the wind finally ebbs, Rachel hears it. More shuffling. Louder. And the echo of gnashing teeth.

///

After the power went off, they were only able to listen to news reports coming in over the army radios down on the street. One of the younger soldiers had been nice enough to turn up the volume when anything new came on. Rachel never really listened because it sounded too fake, too much like something out of a book to be real.

But then they were out in it, crossing deserted Brooklyn in car they found, with keys in the ignition, in Bed-Stuy. It had taken them two days to travel from Bushwick to Dyker Heights because they'd stopped in so many places along the way, scavenging food and clothes from what was left after the evacuation. Prospect Park was still smouldering when they drove past, but there were a few delis nearby that had gone mostly unscathed in the chaos and they stocked up on shitty wine, beef jerky, ramen, and anything else the stores had to offer.

(Rachel tried not to think about it as stealing. The area was abandoned. No one was coming back for the dusty packages of Top Ramen. Or the cigarettes, which they swept into black plastic bags and tucked beneath the spare tire in the trunk. Eventually, they’d come in handy for bartering.)

They got to Staten Island untouched, but with the images of charred bodies sprawled along the streets the further south they drove. There was no explanation, just death, and both women took it in stride. They had to.

The Verazzano bridge stretched before them, so cluttered with abandoned cars they had to leave theirs and walk the length of the bridge with heavy bags weighing them down. A mile into Staten Island, Rachel’s shoulders ached from the weight, and she threatened to leave the bag on the highway if they didn’t find a car soon.

That’s when Rachel found out Cassie could hotwire cars.

“How…?” She couldn’t figure out a not-dumb way of asking the question, but Cassie rolled her eyes anyway and handed Rachel another bag to load in the trunk. This one clanked, signifying wine, and Rachel took care to store it in the empty wheel well.

“My grandfather taught me.”

“Did he also teach you the woes of bathing in the river?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

So they didn’t. They loaded the hideous chartreuse Ford Escort (license plate: THROB) with everything they’d scavenged from Brooklyn, laid down blankets in the back seat for a makeshift bed, and discovered one of the rear windows was stuck completely rolled down. The tank was dangerously close to E and Cassie didn’t want to risk travelling too far away from civilisation before filling up the tank and a few of the spare gas tanks in the trunk.

They were in the middle of the Staten Island Expressway, pushing the car down a swath of open road, when they met Bartek, a Polish guy with big arms and blond hair so pale it was almost white. He helped them syphon gas from a few SUVs on the road and in exchange they gave him a bottle of wine, two cans of succotash, and their undying gratitude.

He was the first person they’d come across since leaving Manhattan, and they tried to pump him for as much information as they could. He explained the burned corpses littering the streets of Brooklyn were the people who didn’t obey the forced evacuation command, or they were people who were deemed infected by the CDC, or even the homeless people who never had a chance, and he warned them about zombies.

“Where there’s one, there is always more.” His thick accent lent itself to a deadly seriousness of what he was saying and Rachel felt the cold of his words all the way to her toes. “Do not use a gun unless you need to. Always go for the head.”

He’d left them with a strong aluminum bat – he promised he had dozens at home – and drove his delivery truck back off of the highway into the infested centre of Staten Island. He had family in there, a wife with a bad knee and a daughter about to have her first baby.

Rachel was pretty sure he wouldn’t last long enough to cheer the baby’s birth with the wine they’d given him.

///

Rachel's stomach turns over and she tries to quietly open her car door. Maybe, she thinks, maybe if I shoot that one, the others will eat him first. But she knows it's a stupid idea as soon as it crosses her mind. They don't eat each other. If they did, they would've eaten each other into extinction days after they rose.

The idea that Cassie is in actual danger makes Rachel want to cry. She feels the tears come to her quickly, hot and angry, but holds them back because Cassie might see her cry.

Cassie who ... when Rachel looks away from the zombies emerging from the woods to where she’d been crouching behind an old purple Datsun, she doesn't see her anymore. No glint of steel from the machete she'd been holding to her chest. No flash of tanned skin under the sun's glare.

Nothing.

But then the passenger door is jerked open and Cassie tumbles in, gracelessly, waving the machete like it's not a deadly weapon.

"GO." She slams the door and grabs for the gear shift, throwing it into reverse before Rachel has a chance to think. “Rachel I swear to-“ But Rachel snaps back from whatever panicked haze she was sinking into and presses down on the gas, backing up so fast that she almost backs into a highway marker. She grits her teeth so hard it hurts and throws the car into drive, pressing down on the gas again so hard the car lurches to keep up. Cassie watches helplessly from her sprawled position in the passenger seat as the zombies sluggishly trudge towards their car, the one in the McDonald’s uniform close enough for Cassie to make out the body’s name.

Rachel shudders and stares straight ahead as they speed past the horde still pouring out of the tree line. Twenty of them, probably, all looking like ordinary country folk out for a walk, if you can ignore the dark blood splattered across their bodies, or the teeth gnashing, hissing noise that follows the pack.

Rachel’s skin crawls as one of the zombies lunges for the car as they pass. But it’s too slow and falls to the ground just behind the Escort’s bumper.

They both exhale and Rachel lets out a shaky laugh, unsure if it’s the adrenaline or the relief that they’re still alive.

///

They drive for an hour after that, slow and steady, letting the clean smelling air of rural Pennsylvania soothe their nerves. Rachel is frazzled enough to switch spots with Cassie, she takes control while Rachel tries to massage the ache out of her fingers, the joints sore from where she clenched the steering wheel for dear life. They say nothing, do nothing, but when the silence has stretched long enough to be comfortable, Cassie reaches across the console and rests her palm – dry and soft – on Rachel’s thigh.

Finally, when the rhythm of driving is steady enough, and the road seems to stretch on endlessly, unpopulated by the shuffling dead, Cassie turns on the CD player and the Escort owner’s last CD clicks on.

And it’s classical music.

“What the-“ Cassie scoffs and turns it down so it’s just soft background music. “You would think that with this car the owner would listen to something more… I dunno, toe tapping.”

“We shouldn’t listen to anything, anyway. What if something…”

“We’re driving at fifty miles an hour down an empty highway. Nothing’s going to get us.” Cassie sighs and settles back into the driver’s seat. “We are going to need to find gas soon, refill some of those cans.”

“Alright… Did you see any signs for gas stations?”

“Nope. This part of Pennsylvania is pretty dead. We might get lucky and find another cluster of abandoned cars up near the park.”

“Park?”

“SB something park, there were signs a mile back. We’re probably ten miles away.” Cassie waves her hand dismissively at Rachel’s side of the road. “Why don’t you close your eyes and I’ll wake you if I come across some cars.”

Rachel sighs, but doesn’t protest, she’s been pushing the limits of ‘alert and vigilant’ for almost two days. She rests her head against the half-open window and lets the soft sound of stringed instruments lull her into unconsciousness.

///

“SHIT!”

The car screeches and bumps into something with a metallic crunch. It’s not a crash, but the silence on the highway is splintered and Cassie cringes, wondering how long it’ll take for any nearby zombies to shuffle their way.

Rachel jerks awake on the impact, her head knocking against the glass before she bolts upright.

“What was that?” Her voice is rough with sleep and there’s dried drool on her chin, but her eyes are bright with alertness. For a brief sad minute, Cassie wonders if this is how she’ll always remember Rachel waking up, since there’s never been a quiet, peaceful morning for them in their entire relationship.

But sadness is for another time. The impact has probably announced their presence to every zombie in the vicinity. And if they don’t get moving, they’re going to get eaten.

“Why did you crash our car?” Rachel asks the sleep shaken from her voice.

“See for yourself.”

The view out of the windshield is obscured by a brown state park sign, so she leans around Cassie to get a good look out at the road. She feels panic rise in her throat and she has to clench her teeth to hold back a scream.

Stretched across the highway is a barricade of cars, two to three thick, spanning the entire width of the highway. But that’s not what made Cassie swerve off of the road. No, it’s the zombies, tethered to the cars with chains. Each one looks more cruelly mutilated than the others they’ve come across on the road. Most are missing limbs or jaws; all of them are coated in a foul, glistening brown substance that Rachel can smell all the way on the shoulder of the highway. The zombies are milling, agitated by the noise of their crash, and the one closest to their car is shambling ominously in their direction.

Cassie, to her credit, doesn’t look shaken at all. Maybe angry, a little annoyed by the fact that someone would do something like build a barricade out of cars, but mostly, unfazed. 

Rachel feels like she’s going to puke.

“We have to get going. We’ve probably attracted a pack by now.”

“Okay,” Rachel mumbles, scrubs her eyes with her fists in a poor attempt at rubbing all exhaustion from her body. “How’re we going to get around them, though?”

“Walk.” Cassie chews on her bottom lip for a moment until something settles across her features. Her jaw sets and her eyes harden. “We’ll head down that ditch over there, it looks like it was mowed shortly before all of this happened so we won’t have to worry about anything lurking in the brush. We’ll walk down the side of the road for half a mile and then get back on the highway and hopefully find another car.”

“This is kind of a dangerous place to be out in the open…” Rachel remembers the shotgun that’s stowed away in the back seat, and the two pistols in the trunk. They’d been fortunate in finding those weapons. Most of the people who had evacuated had taken what they had, but a few unlucky store owners in Staten Island had left behind their guns. She thinks about travelling down the open road with so much stuff strapped to her back and she can practically feel the ache forming in her muscles.

“It’s either we set out on foot or we try to find a way around the barrier. Either way, we gotta do it now.”

“Fine. But I’m not carrying the shotgun.”

“Deal,” Cassie rolls her eyes and throws open the driver’s door. “Hustle, Schwimmer, I want to find another car before dark.”

///

The first thing Cassie does is try one of the older cars towards the back of the barricade. The closest zombie, thankfully armless, struggles to chomp at Cassie while she’s bent over the passenger seat, messing with a tangle of wires under the steering console.

“Nothing,” she growls in frustration and pulls back out of the car with a curse. “They pulled all of the right wires out so no one could boost it. I bet the other ones are the same. Assholes.” Cassie kicks at the car’s tire and Rachel resists making fun of her, biting her lips hard to hold in a laugh.

So they walk down the middle of the road, heavy duffle bags strapped to their backs, Cassie holding the shotgun at the ready while Rachel holds the bat aloft with a sweaty grip. They probably look ridiculous, but in the terrifying, silent stretch of an hour they’re exposed, Rachel feels kind of badass.

///

They've probably walked over two miles by the time they find a useable car. It’s an ugly brown Nissan truck with a mismatched cap on the bed, but it’s old enough for Cassie to hotwire and it turns out to have almost a half tank of gas. 

Cassie's eager to be off her feet and moving fast, but she's wary of the road after so many close calls. She keeps their speed down, the windows up, and a crowbar from the truck's tool box nearby. Just in case.

"It's getting close to sunset," Rachel says as Cassie eases off the gas to keep the truck moving below 40mph. 

"We'll drive until I need the headlights and then we'll call it a night. We can get some sleep in the back."

Rachel just nods and rests her head against the window, trying to let the sounds of the road ease her ragged nerves. She blinks, beating back the physical exhaustion of not enough sleep, and reminds herself that as long as Cassie's awake, she has to be awake too.

///

The truck bed smells like dirt and pine needles, a heavy, warm scent that makes Rachel feel safe, even though they’re dangerously exposed on the shoulder of the highway. She tries not to think about that, focusing instead on the softness of the blankets they’re laid out on and the ragged rise-and-fall pattern of Cassie’s chest against her own. They’re not going to sleep, but they’re going to rest. Rachel’s eyelids feel heavy but the current of anxiety that washes over her every time she shuts her eyes is enough to keep them open.

“This survival thing is getting dull,” Cassie’s voice is soft, cautious of the cracked windows on either side of the cap. Cassie moves her hands up Rachel’s back, an almost absent-minded caress, and Rachel can’t help but relax a little more.

_She’s trying to make this okay._

“What do you mean?” Rachel asks sleepily. 

“I mean, I thought this was going to be all excitement and adventure like Zombieland or The Walking Dead. But no, no side quests hunting for Twinkies or joyrides in sports cars. Just endless road and beef jerky.”

“It's mostly turkey jerky. And, did you even watch past the first two episodes of The Walking Dead?” Rachel asks, rising onto her elbow to look at Cassie clearly. There’s not a trace of seriousness creasing her features and for a moment she feels her anxiety levels flag. 

“No, but I feel like that shouldn’t matter.” Cassie yawns softly and Rachel settles down back against her. Cassie’s hands sneak back up under her shirt, drawing the material away and exposing Rachel’s back to the night air. “I also feel like it’s too hot in this car for all of these clothes.”

Cassie’s movements are slow, like she’s trying not to startle a cat, and the deliberateness of it makes it hard for Rachel to push back the thought of danger. But Cassie’s eyes are soft, watching her in the dark, and Rachel decides to forget fear for a few minutes. She lets Cassie get her top off and starts working her own hands up under the hem of Cassie’s grubby orange tank top.

“Move back,” Cassie says and Rachel complies wordlessly, a nervous thrill of desire running up her spine and keeping her obedient. Cassie slides her top off and, really, it’s one thing to know your partner is braless, it’s another to get up close visual confirmation of this. Rachel’s mouth goes dry and she suddenly finds herself overdressed in her pretty bra and shorts. She unhooks her bra, watching Cassie the whole time, and tosses it down towards the truck’s gate. “Excellent. Now, come back here,” an easy seductiveness laces Cassie’s voice, a spark of her old self returning to her eyes. Rachel complies, her heart throbbing in her throat, and when she feels the press of Cassie’s bare breasts against her own, Rachel doesn’t even choke back a moan of contentment. “You’re so easy,” Cassie murmurs, sliding her hands down Rachel’s back and over the curve of her ass.

“Shut up,” Rachel grumbles and presses a kiss to Cassie’s smirk. She feels Cassie’s lips purse, but then she caves and kisses back.

It’s the first time since Manhattan was firebombed. But that was another lifetime. The way Cassie is kissing her in the darkness of the deserted highway is frantic and needy. Cassie’s hands tremble as she undoes the fly of Rachel’s shorts and for the first time Rachel realises Cassie is probably just as scared as she is. 

“Cassie,” Rachel pants and Cassie’s hands stop short of easing Rachel’s shorts down her legs. “Cassie can I-”

“No.” It comes out almost as a growl and it makes all of the hair on Rachel’s body stand up. They need each other, and Cassie needs it this way, so Rachel reaches out and pulls Cassie back in, kissing her as hard and as rough as she needs to. There will be time for niceness later, maybe when the world isn't ending, but for now this is it. Rachel bites Cassie's bottom lip and Cassie lets loose a groan that reaches straight to Rachel’s core. She moves over Rachel, propped up on the elbow of her left arm, and slides her free hand into the elastic of Rachel’s underwear.

Their shelter is dark and stuffy and Rachel can only see flashes of Cassie’s face by the starlight. Rachel doesn’t need to see her though, she can feel Cassie’s fingers working her over like magic, like it’s only yesterday that they were having sex in her king sized bed in her fancy SoHo flat. Cassie remembers all the right spots and it only takes a few minutes before Rachel is keening, her body trembling as she comes.

She reaches for Cassie, kisses her mouth slow and easy as she soaks in the pleasure of the moment, but then Cassie is pulling away, sliding Rachel’s shorts and underwear off in a smooth, practiced movement. 

"Cassie-" Rachel pants, lifting her hips in the air with a helpless whine.

"Shh," Cassie mumbles in warning, kissing the skin just below Rachel's navel. Rachel bites her bottom lip, inhaling sharply as she spreads her fingers through Cassie's hair. Cassie smiles and chuckles so softly Rachel thinks she imagined it, but then she spreads Rachel's legs and licks her clean and doesn’t stop until Rachel’s whole body lights up like a firework and she has to smother her scream with her palm.

///

Dawn comes too soon and Cassie shakes Rachel awake what feels like a few minutes after they dozed off.

"We're close," she says over their breakfast of cheap jerky, gas station doughnuts, and water. They have a map of the tri-state area spread out in the back of the truck and they're risking a lot by staying exposed, but their stomachs had protested moving without eating. "If this map is right, we'll be at in Ohio soon."

"And then how far to Lima?" Rachel pinches a piece of powdered doughnut off and licks it from her fingers. Cassie squints at Rachel before looking back at the map.

"Four hours, maybe."

"Oh." Rachel nods, brushing powdered sugar from her legs. 

"Are you sure you want to go there? We can just keep heading south from here."

"No..." Rachel sighs, glancing at the windows to make sure they're still alone. "My dads are still..." she squeezes her eyes shut and for a terrifying moment Cassie thinks she might start crying. But then Rachel just takes a deep breath and looks at Cassie with cold determination in her eyes. "I have to make sure. I can't just leave them behind."

Cassie squints at Rachel again and then nods. "We'd better get moving, then, it's well past sun up."

Rachel bites her lip and starts putting up their food. She feels like she's going to be sick, wondering if she made the right decision, or if she's just dragging Cassie into more danger.


End file.
